Monday, May 26, 2014

I hate spoilers. I want to know that you got me a birthday
present, but I don’t want to know what it is. I don’t want to know what happens
on a TV show I watch and I always think the anticipation is part of the fun.

I confess that I do read the last page of books (unless
they’re mysteries) because I want to make sure the ending is satisfying before
I read the book, and I check the dessert menu prior to ordering my meal so that
I know whether or not to leave enough room.

But everything else, don’t tell me.

I’m really good at keeping secrets too. But I completely
screwed up this week. SPOILER ALERT!!!
My daughter watches Dancing With the Stars, but went to bed before the finale.
I really wanted to know who won, so I watched the last five minutes to see. In
the morning, she asked me if I knew who won and I said I did. It was no big
deal; I’ve known who won each episode before she has, and I’ve waited for her
to find out before discussing it with her. But this time, since it was the
finale, we were both worried someone at school would spoil the ending, so I
helped her plan how to avoid spoilers.

When she came home, she told me it worked and that she was
excited to watch it after her homework was done. We were in the car and she was
discussing the show and I was keeping my mouth shut. Then, she asked a
question. Her question was what would happen next season. Apparently, the
previous winners, who have all been singers, have appeared on subsequent
seasons singing a song. She asked the question because she knew none of the
finalists were singers. Without even thinking, I said, “Well, maybe she can do
an ice dance.”

And just like that, I spoiled it for her. I felt a thousand
times worse than she did. She actually thought it was funny, and even more so
when she saw how upset I was. I couldn’t believe I’d done it!

But then she said something that put a completely different
spin on things. She said, “I get to tell this story at dinner.” She was more
excited about sharing the story than she was disappointed that she’d had the
ending spoiled for her.

With four people in our family who have busy and various
schedules, family dinners are a challenge. But my husband and I have made
having dinner together a priority, and we try to sit down altogether at least
four or five times a week. Family dinners are filled with conversation—not
always the most appropriate conversations—but conversation, nonetheless. There
are no devices at the table, unless they enhance what we are discussing. We
don’t answer the phone—if it’s important, the caller will leave a message. It
is our time to be together as a family and we don’t let anything interfere with
it, if we can help it.

Both of our girls are huge talkers, and family dinners often
become a chance to see who has more to say. It’s in this vein that my daughter
jumped at the chance to have a story to tell.

Although I felt really badly about spoiling the ending, it
made me happy to realize that she likes these dinners that I’ve tried so hard
to establish. Even if it means I have to listen to stories multiple times, or
hear for the bagillionth time about camp, or listen to them argue over who gets
to talk first, I’m glad that getting that chance to be together is important to
her.

Although next time I provide fodder for the dinner table, I
hope it won’t be about how I spoiled the ending. Sigh.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Hi!
My name is Denisea Kampe and I’m a recovering pen name user. (It’s okay to
laugh at this point!)

When
I first approached Jennifer about hosting me for my little release blast party,
I asked if there was anything she’d like me to blog about for her and brought
up the subject of who I was, who I became, and who I am now. We first met
working through a small press in Wyoming a couple of years ago and I introduced
myself as Lila Munro. That was pen name. I’ve always been Denisea, but when I
first aspired to publish a few years ago, I was asked what pen name I’d be
using and without much thought, I came up with Lila Munro on the fly and so it
was who I became. It wasn’t until a bit later Jennifer actually found out what
my real name is and not long after that I was faced with several decisions
about my career at once.

I’ve
written as long as I can remember, and when I wasn’t writing I was making
stories up. I loved books long before I could spell and I can’t remember a time
I didn’t know I’d be published someday. There was even a point during my
college days I was a journalism major. Just think, I could have been anchoring
the evening news somewhere, but news wasn’t my bag and after many years of
trying to figure out what was through writing and shredding, writing and
shredding, I figured out romance was. And that’s where I started out, in
contemporary adult romance. Then things took a turn and before I could say,
“That’s all from Denisea Kampe this evening, tune in tomorrow for highlights…”
Lila Munro decided she’d bend to a trend and go from contemporary to erotic.
Then from erotic to something just shy of erotica.

The
problem was, even though I was pretty darn good at it, I became quite
discontent because I knew in my heart it that genre wasn’t really where I
belonged. I’ll leave my blog address with my links and if you’d like to know
more about why I was so discontent, please come by for a much lengthier talk on
that. But for here, we’ll go with my heart was quite discontent. And while I
was trying to ignore the feeling in my heart which was giving me such problems,
my nieces started wondering what their aunty was writing—they’re eleven and
thirteen. Uh, yeah, when faced with the stark reality what you already know
you’re not happy writing is out there and your precious nieces could find it,
let me tell you, it’s just shy of sickening really. Then the final blow…

My
best friend came clean, I found out she was also unhappy writing
erotic/erotica, and she went a full 360 and landed in the inspirational scene.

Gee…how
much more guilt does one person need before they give?

I
guess about that much because it was around that point I decided enough was
enough and my entire career shifted left. I took down all my erotic/erotica
titles and started cleaning up my website and getting rid of several social
outlets that weren’t doing me a bit of good and were in fact making things much
harder for me. But it still didn’t seem like enough. I knew the only way to
hold myself accountable and be true to me was to BE ME.

What
was left of my once long list of back titles amounted to six stories. My editor
and publisher’s graphic arts department worked their butts off making all the
necessary changes and I am forever grateful for that. I’m now Denisea Kampe,
Contemporary Romance Writer and I have six back titles that reflect that and
the most exciting thing has happened.

My
first title to come out solely under my real name just debuted!

I’ll
leave you with a bit of an excerpt below and where you can find For His
Country. For now, I’d like to thank each of you for spending part of your day
with me, and thank you Jennifer for hosting me and letting me tell my story.

Have
a realmantic day!

Denisea
Kampe

Twenty-seven
years, more than a dozen deployments, five kids…and one missing wife.

After
twenty-seven years of marriage and service to his country, Gavin McIntyre
returns from what he hopes will be his last deployment before either reaching
the highest attainable enlisted rank in the Marine Corps or retiring. But what
he returns to leaves him flat aback with a busted mast and broken rudder. His
wife is a no show for the homecoming. Using the ages old adage of improvise,
adapt, and overcome, he makes his way home only to discover, she hasn’t simply
forgotten to pick him up from the bus, she’s gone. In her wake, Gavin finds his
home set up boot camp style and twenty dollars in the cookie jar, but any
evidence he’s ever had a wife or five children with her is deplete.

Pregnant
at sixteen and married to a marine in a less than romantic ceremony courtesy of
the local Justice, Raylyn McIntyre has spent almost three decades playing the
dutiful patriotic wife, catering to the whims of the military. She’s lost track
of how many places she’s lived, how many deployments she’s endured, and how
many tears she’s shed. But most of all, she’s lost track of herself. With a
husband who’s so wrapped up in saving the world he can’t see he’s losing his
family, Ray resorts to the one tactic he might understand…a full frontal attack
with extreme prejudice, which proves to get Gavin’s waning attention.

Nothing
good ever comes easy, though, and just when her choice of battle plan seems to
be working, tragedy befalls their family. As Ray and Gavin struggle to find
center, they also struggle with the notion that forgiveness of self is often
the only path to forgiveness of another, and that path is not only bumpy but
filled with pitfalls.

Excerpt:

“Meatloaf?
Dear God,” Ray mumbled, buckling up.

No
wonder Gavin looked at her like she’d sprouted an additional head. Meatloaf.
Good grief. If she’d have been herself this morning instead of some woman she
hadn’t recognized since the first of the year, she’d have skipped the meatloaf,
had the curtains hemmed by noon, and would have had one of Gavin’s favorite
meals ready and waiting at five o’clock on the dot with a card, a box of
cigars, and a bottle of wine. And all the cookies and cards and candies would
have been mailed days ago.

But Ray
wasn’t herself. Hell, she wasn’t even the woman she was almost a year ago when
she went on a tirade and decided enough was enough and she had to find herself.
Who she’d become since the rift between her and Gavin had widened was an empty
shell of middle-aged flesh who couldn’t remember what she’d gone to the grocery
for without two detailed lists in case she lost one in the process of getting
to the store.

“Forget
about the damn meatloaf,” Gavin said, merging into traffic and heading for the
front gate. “Forget about the meatloaf, the pizza, the movie, the cookies and
the damn cards. Forget about my cigars. Tonight we’re taking care of us. Period. We, I, should have been doing that more often all along. My fault…”

“So this
has everything to do with making yourself feel better? Not me?” Ray accused,
happy for the reprieve of wallowing in her own guilt and even happier to be
able to poke at someone else’s. “To ease your own guilt because you’ve missed
so many special occasions? You think one nice dinner out is supposed to fix
years of forgetfulness?”

“If it
makes you feel better to yell at me, go ahead,” Gavin said. “It beats the dead
silence that’s hung over us ever since the first of the year. My fault? You bet
your sweet ass, woman, but I’m not going to sit and stew in the guilt I could
lay on myself. I’m going to fix it. And you’re going to stop feeling guilty,
too. We deserve a life and damn it, we’re going to start living it.”

“You
think it’s that easy?” Ray shot at him. “You think we can just decide one day
okay, let’s just forget the last twenty-seven years and pow, everything is just hunky-dory?”

“No, I
don’t think it’s going to be that easy, but it could be easier if you’d let
it.”

“Now I’m the one being difficult?” Ray huffed
and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Let me tell you, mister, you’re the
one who’s been difficult.”

“Yes, I
know that,” Gavin agreed.

“Oh, that’s great,” Ray snipped, steam building. “Now you
think to take the wind out of my sails by being agreeable and stealing my
reasons for being angry? Stop agreeing with me, it makes it difficult for me to
stay pissed off!”

Born
and raised in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, Denisea Kampe was spinning
tales before she could even spell and once her sixth grade creative writing
teacher encouraged her by leaving a most prophetic comment on one of her
assignments, the wheels of destiny were set in motion. But those wheels would
need greased again and again as her writing would take a back seat to life and
her jobs of mom and wife many times over before she’d finally see her dream of
becoming a published writer come to fruition in 2010. Denisea is a military
wife who’s traveled the world over. She’s lived in four states and Okinawa
Japan and held more drivers’ licenses than she can count. Her nest is empty save
one furry and quite mischievous Siberian Husky and one spoiled rotten Rat
Terrier mix. Denisea takes much of her inspiration for her heroes from the
marines she’s lived around since marrying her very own fairy tale prince in
dusty cammies. Coining the term realmantica, she strives to produce quality
romance in a realistic setting. Her genre of choice is contemporary romance and
when she’s not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on,
trips to the museum, taking field research trips, crafting, and sewing. Her
works include One Tear, The Executive Officer’s Wife, Private Pirouette, and the Slower
Lower series. Denisea loves
to hear from her readers and can be found at deniseakampe.blogspot.com

Monday, May 12, 2014

How do you find the balance between standing up for yourself
(or someone else) and overreacting? When is keeping silent taking the high road
and when is it being a doormat?

I like to think I put up with a lot, that it takes something
out of the ordinary to make me angry. If that’s true, then I’m suddenly hanging
out with a lot of unique people and participating in many extraordinary events,
because there are a lot of things making me angry.

Perhaps I’m just tired of swallowing things and pretending
everything is okay, even when it’s not. Maybe I’m frustrated with the number of
people who take my “Fine” at face value when they ask how I am. Or maybe I’m
finally realizing that people are not mind readers and it’s time to speak up.

I have great plans for standing up for what’s right and for
punishing wrongs. Sometimes, I even write them down, so that I don’t forget
what I want to say. I have a whole speech prepared for a Board meeting. I have
a punishment set for a child who didn’t do what I told her to do.

But then I get second thoughts. Maybe I should speak up.
Maybe a public meeting isn’t the place to say what I want to say. Maybe it’s a
waste of other people’s time. And that punishment? It’s not harsh, but maybe
I’m over reacting. Maybe the threat is enough. Maybe I should give one more—in a
series of one mores—chance.

The other day, I had a choice when writing a letter. I could
point fingers and make the blame obvious for a problem, or I could take the
high road and get the point of the letter across, without laying blame. I chose
the high road (my grandmother would be proud) and it felt good. It was peaceful
and it was nice not to be angry anymore.

But there’s a difference between choosing whether or not to
be dignified and making sure things get done the way they’re supposed to. I
hate confrontation, and when I calm down, I often decide it’s easier to avoid. However,
while avoidance is easier, it’s not always best.

I’m hoping that peace comes also with doing what’s right,
even when it’s hard. And maybe that balance will adjust itself as I go.

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About Me

I'm a mom, wife, strategist, lover of snark, volunteer, shoe- and choco-holic. I write to escape the craziness of life. Sometimes I even write about that craziness! My blogs are usually a bit snarky; my books are contemporary romance. I also write freelance articles for magazines, newspapers, and edit newsletters.